59 Seat Minority
Post by Carl
The Seattle Times has obsessed with Obama killing health care reform so that he can focus on the economy, as if health care has nothing to do with the economy. Now that it’ll be tougher to do either thanks to a bunch of Massholes, what’s the Times idea? Exactly the same thing. You really have to give Ryan Blethen a lot of credit: Instead of the countless editorials about the estate tax that basically say the same thing, now we have countless editorials about health care that basically say the same thing. I think this is progress:
THE capture of Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat by a Republican, Scott Brown, is more than “one of the biggest upsets in Massachusetts political history,” which is what The Boston Globe called it. It is as if the voters of Massachusetts pulled an emergency brake on a train, breaking the momentum of the health-reform bills chugging through Congress.
Perhaps one day someone will pull the emergency brake on the Times’ Editorial writers’ bad metaphors.
That momentum had been slowing already. Many people thought a bill would pass last August, as a tribute to Sen. Kennedy. Instead, separate House and Senate bills made it over the top only in December. Out of 435 votes, the House had three to spare. In the Senate, Democrats had to offer Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Nebraska, political boodle in order to get the bare 60 votes needed.
Yeah. We should eliminate the 60 vote threshold in the Senate. Or eliminate the Senate altogether.
With Brown’s election, the Democrats lost their 60th vote.
Only 59%. What a bunch of losers. Why does anyone give a damn what 59% think?
Meanwhile, poll after poll had shown that the American people had become worried about how reform would affect them. By late last year, more Americans opposed the effort than supported it. They wanted their leaders to worry about the economy, and jobs.
Well, I agree we should have had a stronger health care bill. But that’s hardly reason for inaction now. If we move forward a bit, we can move further a bit later and a bit after that.
The reply by supporters was that reform is complicated, that people didn’t understand it, and that once they had a taste of it, they would like it. It hasn’t turned out that way in Massachusetts. Of the 50 states, that is the one with its own health-care reform, including an individual mandate to buy insurance.
So the least relevant to the discussion.
Congress should set the botched health-insurance proposals aside and get on with issues that touch directly on economic recovery, starting with financial reform. When Congress takes up health care again — and it will — it should do it in a manner that is less partisan. Future health-care reform should also be focused more on the problem of rising costs, which is what contributed to Tuesday’s upset in Massachusetts.
Argh. Congress should set aside the bipartisanship for bipartisanship’s sake that delayed, weakened, now threatens to kill health care reform. They should try to make the best laws for the American people.